Computer users today are able to access large amounts of information over the Internet and other networks. As information sources, such as web sites available over the Internet, become more content rich and dynamic, the URLs that refer to pages within these web sites are becoming more and more cluttered and confusing. It is often difficult to discern the subject matter of a page from a URL.
As the World Wide Web has developed, URLs have become less contextually relevant. For instance in the earlier days of the World Wide Web, users could expect a URL such as “http://entertainment.msn.com/music/BritneySpearsBio.htm”. From viewing this URL, users could discern the type of content of the web page, which in this case would be a biography of Britney Spears. Thus, this URL was not only easy to read, but would also often provide some context for users. In other words, the text of the URL provided users with an idea of the content that would be exposed upon navigation.
Today with very large, database driven web sites users can expect to see a URL such as “http://entertainment.msn.com/music/artist.aspx?aid=32442&s=4&uid=true”. This URL provides little or no information pertaining to the context of the referenced page.
Additionally, many businesses today that use commercial web sites to convey information have an interest in tracking statistics regarding visitor activity. Commercial web sites today often aim to track usage as measured by the number of users viewing specific pieces of content. Typically, commercial web sites implement tracking servers to track URL usage from a partner server having one or more links to the commercial web site. Generally, tracking information is encoded into a URL. Software in the tracking server logs information and redirects the user browser to the location of the link that the user wanted to reach. When a user clicks on a link in a partner web site after tracking, the user receives a completely random looking string of numbers and letters that has no relevance to the user's selected destination. After tracking, all of the links will have lost their context. In other words, a URL that pointed to “http://entertainment.msn.com/movies” may now point to “http://g.msn.com/ent.345/?ps=123&cm=321&ce=5”. The tracking URL is typically a nonsensical combination of letters and/or numbers that provides no contextual information about the destination and bears little relation to the target URL content, thus causing confusion to the user.
In addition to user confusion, these contextually irrelevant URLs produced by large database driven systems and tracking servers have little meaning to search index systems that also rely on URL content for indexing. If a web site is indexed by a web search index system such as Google, the algorithms of the web search index system apply weight to context that can be inferred from a URL. Accordingly, if ten external partner web sites point to one page on a target web site and all of the external web sites have information in the URL that allows the heuristics of the web search index system to determine context, then that one page that has those ten links referencing it is going to rank much higher in search results than other pages.
User satisfaction is a critical success factor for a search engine. A solution is needed that allows contextually relevant URLs to be maintained to enable web sites to participate fully in web search engines and to enable users to discern target web site content from the URL. A system that can allow the use of contextually relevant URLs is currently in high demand for sites wishing to participate fully in web search engines. Because of the strong weight that many contemporary search algorithms apply to the URL of a given page being indexed, it has become increasingly important to provide clues as to the content of a web page within its destination URL.